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The Metamorphosis 

Franz Kafka

Publisher
Kurt Wolff Verlag & Leipzig.

penguin group (usa)

375 Hudson Street
New York, NY 10014-3657
www.penguin.com/static/pages/classics/

Published by Penguin Group, Inc 200₅.

The Metamorphosis was originally published in
1915 under Kurt Wolff Verlag & Leipzig.

ISBN 0 00 22₆₄1₉ ₉ (Hardback)

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or
transmitted in any form or by any means, electronically or mechanical,
including photocopy, recording, or any other storage: and retrieval system, without
the prior written permission of the publisher. Penguin Classics and the
penguin Classics Colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Group, Inc.

Set in English, Printed and Bound in England.
Character set encoding: ASCII

Copyright (C) 2002 by David Wyllie.

987654321

PENGUIN CLASSICS

This book is dedicated to:
 Cindy Staniski & Bob Staniski

"His room, a regular human room, only
a little on the small side, lay quiet
between the four familiar walls."

Chapter One

One morning, when Gregor Samsa woke from troubled dreams,
he found himself transformed in his bed into a horrible vermin.
He lay on his armour-like back, and if he lifted his head a little he
could see his brown belly, slightly domed and divided by arches
into stiff sections. The bedding was hardly able to cover it and
seemed ready to slide off any moment. His many legs, pitifully thin
compared with the size of the rest of him, waved about helplessly
as he looked.

“What’s happened to me?” he thought. It wasn’t a dream. His room,
a proper human room although a little too small, lay peacefully be-
tween its four familiar walls. A collection of textile samples lay spread
out on the table — Samsa was a traveling salesman — and above it there

the metamorphosis

hung a picture that he had recently cut out of an illustrated magazine
and housed in a nice, gilded frame. It showed a lady fitted out with a
fur hat and fur boa who sat upright, raising a heavy fur muff that cov-
ered the whole of her lower arm towards the viewer.

Gregor then turned to look out the window at the dull weather.
Drops of rain could be heard hitting the pane, which made him feel
quite sad. “How about if I sleep a little bit longer and forget all this
nonsense”, he thought, but that was something he was unable to do
because he was used to sleeping on his right, and in his present state
couldn’t get into that the metamorphosis position. However hard he
threw himself onto his right, he always rolled back to where he was. He
must have tried it a hundred times, shut his eyes so that he wouldn’t
have to look at the floundering legs, and only stopped when he began
to feel a mild, dull pain there that he had never felt before.

“Oh, God”, he thought, “what a strenuous career it is that I’ve cho-
sen! Travelling day in and day out. Doing business like this takes much
more effort than doing your own business at home, and on top of
that there’s the curse of travelling, worries about making train con-
nections, bad and irregular food, contact with different people all the
time so that you can never get to know anyone or become friendly
with them. It can all go to Hell!” He felt a slight itch up on his belly;
pushed himself slowly up on his back towards the headboard so that
he could lift his head better; found where the itch was, and saw that it
was covered with lots of little white spots which he didn’t know what

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franz kafka

to make of; and when he tried to feel the place with one of his legs he
drew it quickly back because as soon as he touched it he was overcome
by a cold shudder.

He slid back into his former position. “Getting up early all the
time”, he thought, “it makes you stupid. You’ve got to get enough
sleep. Other travelling salesmen live a life of luxury. For instance,
whenever I go back to the guest house during the morning to copy
out the contract, these gentlemen are always still sitting there eating
their breakfasts. I ought to just try that with my boss; I’d get kicked
out on the spot. But who knows, maybe that would be the best thing
for me. If I didn’t have my parents to think about I’d have given in my
notice a long time ago, I’d have gone up to the boss and told him just
what I think, tell him everything I would, let him know just what I feel.
He’d fall right off his desk! And it’s a funny sort of business to be sit-
ting up there at your desk, talking down at your subordinates from up
there, especially when you have to go right up close because the boss is
hard of hearing. Well, there’s still some hope; once I’ve got the money
together to pay off my parents’ debt to him — another five or six years
I suppose — that’s definitely what I’ll do. That’s when I’ll make the big
change. First of all though, I’ve got to get up, my train leaves at five.”

And he looked over at the alarm clock, ticking on the chest of
drawers. “God in Heaven!” he thought. It was half past six and the
hands were quietly moving forwards, it was even later than half past,
more like quarter to seven. Had the alarm clock not rung? He could

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the metamorphosis

Tsee from the bhede Mtheattaitmhoardphboeseins”s(eotrifgoirnfaolurGoe’rcmloacnk as it should

have been; it cteirtltea:in“Dlyime-husist dhahveeMruentagm. Yoersp,hbousits”was it possible to
quietly sleep th(ororiuggihnatlhGaterfmurannittuirtele-r: a“tDtliiengVenrowisaen?dTluruneg,”)he had not
slepits paesahcoerftunlloy,vbeluwt rpitrtoebnabblyyFarlalntzhKe amfkoar,efidresteppluybblieshcaeudse of that.
Whiant 1s9h1o5u, lids thhee dmoonstofwa?mTohues onfeKxtaftkraai’snwwoernkts aatlosnegven; if he were
to cwaticthh tthheattrhiael wanodulTdhheaCveasttoler.uTshheliskteormy abdegainnds wthheencollection of
samapltersavwelaisngstsialllensomtapna, cGkreedg,oarnSdamhesad, iwdankoets uatp atlol ffienedl particularly
freshhiamnsdellfivterlay.nAsfnodrmeveedniniftoheadgiidanctatinchsetchte. Ctruariniohueslwy, ould not avoid
his bhoisssc’soanndgiteiroansdthoeesonffoicteaarsosuissteansutrwporiusledihnahviesbfeaemniltyh, ere to see the
five woh’colomckerterlayindegsop,ishees witoausldanhiamvepepnudtining hbiusrdreepno. rAtsabout Gregor’s
not wbeitihngatllhoefreKaalfoknag’s twimorekasg, oT.hTehMe oeftfaimceoarspshisotsainstiswoaspethne boss’s man,
spinteoleassw, iadnedrwanitghe noof iunntedreprrsetatnatdiionngs..WMhoastt oabboviuotuisf ahreereported sick?
Buttthheamt wesorueldlatbiengexttoresomceielytys’tsrtarienaetdmaenndtsoufspthicoisoeuws ahsoinarfeifteen years
of sedrifvfiecreenGtr,etghoerlohnadelinneevsesroofniscoelayteitobne, ethneilal.bHsuirsdbitoysos fwtohueld certain-
ly cohmume arnoucnodndwitiitohntahneddcoacptiotralfirsomm. the medical insurance company,
accuse his parents of having a lazy son, and accept the doctor’s recom-

mend“aEtniodnlenssolyt dtoissmecatkeed,arniyppceladimapaasrtt,hites’dgoucttsolraibdeoliuevteodn tahat no-one
was ever ill bsluatb,tsheawt nmbaancykwtoegreethweor.r.k.” s—hyG. Aonoddrwehaadts’s more, would he

have been entirely wrong in this case? Gregor did in fact, apart from

excesKsiavfekas’lseTehpeinMeestsamafotreprhsolseiseipsionnge offotrhsooseljounmgp,infegeolffcpoominptlseftoerly well and
evenmfoedletrmn luictehrahtuurneg, raiekreythtoaunchusstuonael.where so many good writers

H—e wBaosrgsetsi,lNl habuorkrioevd, lGyatrhcíiankMinágrqaulelzt—hisfotuhnrdoiungsphi,rautnioanbilen to decide
to get ohuist wofortkhaenbdesdtu, dwiehdeint ltihkeeactleoxctkbosotkruonckgrqeautarwterirtitnog.seven. There
was a cautious knock at the door near his head. “Gregor”, somebody

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